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Sorry guys I don't know what happened and a post like this came out.

yet another symbol of the Cold War fell. As I'm sure most if not all of you know, Pres. Obama announced the removal of the Eastern European missile shield. What do you all think about this. Not to discriminate, but I think it would be particularly interesting to hear from our European members.

On another note and potential topic, I'm reading Thomas Friedman's "The World is Flat" and in it he says that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were some of the first to predict globalization in none other than The Communist Manifesto. Any thoughts on this?

At 9/18/09 08:41 PM, Patton3 wrote: yet another symbol of the Cold War fell. As I'm sure most if not all of you know, Pres. Obama announced the removal of the Eastern European missile shield. What do you all think about this. Not to discriminate, but I think it would be particularly interesting to hear from our European members.

Well,I believe that Obama is wrong.All these Islamic nations are dangerous(I'm not a racist).In Europe we have a big problem with muslims and terorrists which in America you won't see.I believe that the war with the terrorists was a good move.Osama Bin Landen was insane which made 1 milion Jihads.Anyways...I think its a bad move.

Speaking of history.... how many of you know that the Gulf of Tonkin attack, used to justify the Vietnam war that killed a million people, was completely staged by the US government..?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Ton kin_Incident

"In 2005, an internal National Security Agency historical study was declassified; it concluded[3] that Maddox had engaged the North Vietnamese on August 2, but that there may not have been any North Vietnamese vessels present during the engagement of August 4. The report stated

[I]t is not simply that there is a different story as to what happened; it is that no attack happened that night. [...] In truth, Hanoi's navy was engaged in nothing that night but the salvage of two of the boats damaged on August 2.[4]"

Now you do

At 9/18/09 08:41 PM, Patton3 wrote: yet another symbol of the Cold War fell. As I'm sure most if not all of you know, Pres. Obama announced the removal of the Eastern European missile shield. What do you all think about this. Not to discriminate, but I think it would be particularly interesting to hear from our European members.

Its about bloody time in my opinion, missile shields have been shown to be almost totally ineffective white elephants which say to people like the Russians "we don't trust you". The concept is insane, that one can shoot a missile out of the air with another missile is akin to shooting bullets out of the air... with other bullets. According to Douglas Niles the level of failure with these programs are sky high, missiles dont launch, the enemy missile cant be detected, and only in the very, very best conditions does the missile ever manage to intercept and destroy the incoming missile, close to ten percent of the time. Not very comforting is it?
To add to the problem its simple for an enemy power to render the system useless, missiles can be equipped with stealth technology (like in the B-2 spirit) to slip through the radar, or they can simply fire a ton of confusing decoy missiles to confuse the system while the real nuclear warhead is hidden in the mass.
Thus it is a multi-billion dollar waste of money, which has an unnecessary destableising effect on world politics, so yeah, I'm glad to see it go.

On another note and potential topic, I'm reading Thomas Friedman's "The World is Flat" and in it he says that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were some of the first to predict globalization in none other than The Communist Manifesto. Any thoughts on this?

Marx was quite innovative even without the whole communism stuff, apparently he was the first person to recognize trade cycles.
BTW just out of curiosity, does anyone know how many civilians were killed in the American civil war?

Our only "effective" anti-missile system is the patriot missile launcher. Basically a missile truck equipped with medium range radar is loaded with these missiles, and once one of these patriots is locked on, it can take down an airborne missile, so long as it's target is ground based. it has a max range of two miles, and was first used in The Gulf War. It probably could take out a nuclear msiile, but the launch platform would be in the blast radius, and modern nukes have 10 warheads.
The patriot has proven itself highly effective when working in sync with AA defenses in providing a 4 mile wide "roof" over bases, cities, and advancing troops. It can defeat short range ground targeted missiles, providing a morale boost to our men, and defeating morale in the enemy.

As for the American Civil War, total dead was about 600,000. Almost all were military casualties. Many think that when cities and farmhouses were burned, particularly during the Sherman's infamous march, many civilians were killed. In actuality, it was mostly just destruction of property either by restless troops, or attempts to destroy confederate supply lines and morale. Sherman actually killed very few civilians, and lost but 600 men throughout his campaign. Although the property destruction his troops encured was enormous.

At 9/20/09 11:22 AM, Patton3 wrote:

The patriot has proven itself highly effective when working in sync with AA defenses in providing a 4 mile wide "roof" over bases, cities, and advancing troops. It can defeat short range ground targeted missiles, providing a morale boost to our men, and defeating morale in the enemy.

Not quite so, in the Gulf war it is stated that the patriot had a success rate of only about 30 percent, which doesn't bode well. That doesn't even mean destroying the missile, "success" was simply intercepting it, which could be as small as nudging off course. In Iraq this might have been enough, since the warhead probably would just end up in an unpopulated desert, but in a nuclear war thats not enough at all, instead of hitting the centre of a city it may "only" hit a suburb. 100,000 dead instead of 200,000! Er, mission successful? Add to that the variety of ways that a nation can make this already shaky defense system completely pointless as i portrayed in my last post, to me it says one thing. for a nuclear war, Mutually assured destruction still stands, and will stay no matter how many missiles one fires at the problem. consider.

As for the American Civil War, total dead was about 600,000. Almost all were military casualties. Many think that when cities and farmhouses were burned, particularly during the Sherman's infamous march, many civilians were killed. In actuality, it was mostly just destruction of property either by restless troops, or attempts to destroy confederate supply lines and morale. Sherman actually killed very few civilians, and lost but 600 men throughout his campaign. Although the property destruction his troops encured was enormous.

Interesting, but I would have thought that since it was the first total industrial war the civilian casulties would be immense, I heard a figure saying that it may have been as high as one million (ding) but resources on this are hard to find, the 600,000 is only military and nobody really knows how many civilians were killed. I don't believe that it could have been very low at all, even if all the rampaging troops did was destroy farms and burn houses it would still have left tens of thousands of people with no food or shelter, and considering that in, for example, Russia during the civil war that generally leads to starvation and famine, I don't think it would be too conservative to say that the total dead was twice the official figure.

I should have gotten to this sooner, but you must remember that it has been improved in recent years, and that it's not like we have lists of other options to choose from for taking out missiles.
While we're at the topic of Cold War era technology, I recently had a good conversation with TheMason about Obama canceling the raptor. What do you all think about this?

Well, not to change the subject, but I was invited to come to this here crew with its fine people by a certain Mr. Patton. So I'd like to join by gauging your reaction to this:

Machiavelli was not actually sympathetic to principalities (little dictatorships), and despite writing The Prince he was actually one of the earliest modern Republicans and believed in the separation of powers a couple hundred years before Montesquieu.

Any doubts, or is this already common knowledge? I feel that he's probably one of the most misunderstood historical figures.

At 10/16/09 08:29 PM, Tancrisism wrote: Well, not to change the subject, but I was invited to come to this here crew with its fine people by a certain Mr. Patton. So I'd like to join by gauging your reaction to this:

Yeah... we're not as active as we used to be, so I invite people from time to time. I hate to be the only one who ever posts on here.

Machiavelli was not actually sympathetic to principalities (little dictatorships), and despite writing The Prince he was actually one of the earliest modern Republicans and believed in the separation of powers a couple hundred years before Montesquieu.

I never learned much about Machiavelli admittedly, although I plan to read THe Prince. However, if he wasn't at least somewhat sympathetic to the principalities, why did he write The Prince? As some grand piece of satire, or perhaps to just understand them, sort of show how they worked? and I must ask, in what writings did he convey this? I have no doubt he wrote other treatises, papers and such, but they're probably just so overshadowed by "The Prince".

At 10/16/09 08:29 PM, Tancrisism wrote:

Machiavelli was not actually sympathetic to principalities (little dictatorships), and despite writing The Prince he was actually one of the earliest modern Republicans and believed in the separation of powers a couple hundred years before Montesquieu.

Any doubts, or is this already common knowledge? I feel that he's probably one of the most misunderstood historical figures.

I suppose, but the book did leave a strong impact, more so than his other work.
By the way did anyone read "
WW2 behind closed doors-Stalin, the Nazis and the west" by Laurence Rees? its really very interesting.

hey guys!
Listen Badass tunes, we got this one covered every friday at 8pm est we do a line up of the best newgrounds audio portal have to offer, reviews and links stay tuned and go to BADASS 87 RADIO

if you want to promote your flash or radio show, or band or whatever you have to promote we do take guests on wednesday!

Isn't this kinda spam?

Yeah, Vago, it's alright to invite us as guests on the above mentioned radio show, but we can do without the logo that takes up half a page. In the future, just send pm's or make a small announcement if you'd like one of us as guests on VE day or something.

I should have made this a part of the above post, but I recently read in an article, from the Wall Street Journal I think, that Thanksgiving is the one true American, Christian holiday, and that the "war" on it is more pressing than the "war" on Christmas. The author in question makes this statement primarily on the following points:
1. There are 3 major holidays that are often grouped as Christian: Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving.
2. But since Christmas and Easter were originally pagan, Thanksgiving is the only "real" Christian holiday, since it's roots are with the protestant immigrants and Indians who first celebrated it.
3. According to our writer "The war over Thanksgiving as a holiday began when a generation was taught that the holiday's first setting was Pilgrims being saved from starvation by Native Americans. This war continues with a President that defines it as a time to thank each other."
It's worth noting that what prompted this was Obama referring to the holiday as "a time for us to renew our bonds with one another".
My 2 cents is that he's not okay with historical fact since it was to celebrate a good harvest with a feast. That good harvest due in most part to the help of the highly agricultural group of Indians under Massasoit... and I frankly see no problem with celebrating it as a day of thanks. Heaven forbid we should celebrate a national holiday in a secular manner. But hey, I'm a liberal atheist, so I'm obviously biased.
Thoughts anyone?

Let's talk about the history of the 90's! It's almost ancient now!